Trump’s Tax Plan Would Be 23,500 Times Better for the Ultra-Rich Than the Poor

It is instructive to recall the many instances in which the Republican Party, in a more dignified universe, might have been expected to disown Donald Trump. On the campaign trail, there was the infamous “grab ‘em by the p---y” fiasco. Since taking office, there have been a gobsmacking number of tweets that might have prompted concern for his mental state, like the one in which a sitting president, doing his best impression of a tween-age mean girl, attacked Mika Brzezinski and claimed she’d had a facelift because she was mean to him on TV; or when he baselessly accused the F.B.I. director he had fired of criminal activity, based on a botched Fox News segment; or when he went to the mat to defend his eldest son’s meeting with a Kremlin-linked lawyer after being promised damaging information about Hillary Clinton straight from the Russian government.

Of course, we all know why, against all odds, the G.O.P. has stood by 45: tax cuts. Yes, the prospect of shrinking the government while simultaneously transferring trillions to the rich takes precedence over potentially punishing the president for any unsavory campaign dealings with a foreign government. Especially when, as a new analysis of Trump’s proposed tax plan shows, said redistribution would be bigger and bolder than anything in Paul Ryan’s wildest dreams.

According to the Tax Policy Center, the cuts that Team Trump included in their bullet-point outline last April could result in a loss of revenue between $3.4 trillion and $7.8 trillion over 10 years. To whom will those benefits go? We’ll give you two guesses, but you’ll only need one. Here’s Vox:

The package, the T.P.C. finds, would overwhelmingly help the wealthy. Including the tax hikes (like doing away with personal exemptions and other common deductions), the overall plan would give the average family earning under $25,000 per year a $40 tax cut, or a 0.3 percent boost in after-tax income. The top 0.1 percent, earning above $3.4 million a year, would get an average tax cut of $937,700, or a 13.3 percent boost in after-tax income.

But wait, hasn’t Team Trump pitched their tax plan as a benefit for the middle and lower class that “isn’t about a dramatic cut in taxes for the wealthy,” as Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchinsaid in April? Allow Bloomberg to disabuse you of that notion:

. . . Some elements in [the plan] would be of particular benefit for wealthier people, the tax center’s Mark Mazur said. For example, the estate tax applies only to estates worth more than $5.49 million for individuals or $10.98 million for married couples. “If you’re serious about not cutting taxes for higher-income people you probably wouldn’t repeal the estate tax,” Mazur said. Overall, under the plan, “The benefits largely flow to the top.”

Getting rid of the estate tax, you may recall National Economic Council Director Gary Cohnsaying, with a straight face, is all about helping “American farmers,” and not people like, for instance, the five children of a billionaire real-estate developer-turned-president. On the small matter of increasing the deficit by trillions of dollars, the Trump administration has repeatedly said the plan will “pay for itself” through growth, but, as it has been pointed out by many, that fantasy only works if you are using fake math. By the T.P.C.’s estimation, “you only raise $108.9 billion from growth effects,” leaving a gaping $3.4 trillion hole.

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Speaking of tax cuts . . .

The other group seemingly inured to having a president in office whose son, of his own accord, released e-mails that involve him responding “I love it” to the promise of Russian dirt on Hillary Clinton, is Wall Street. After a brief period of mild worry on Wednesday, following Donny Jr.’s decision to tweet his own smoking gun, the markets erased their losses. On Thursday, the Dow closed at a record high after Fed Chair Janet Yellen testified that interest rate hikes will be gradual and that the central bank probably won’t raise rates much further.

More people chime in to tell Trump his would-be trade war is a horrible idea

Before the Fourth of July weekend, we learned that golf course owner-turned-president Donald Trump still really wants to start a trade war, despite reported objections from nearly his entire Cabinet. The people who don’t want Trump to go down that road—and, again, that group includes basically everyone who works for him—believe that while the potential plan would be to slap China with tariffs on steel and other imports, it would ultimately affect a slew of important allies like Germany, Canada, Mexico, Japan, and the United Kingdom. Now, a bunch of other voices have chimed in to let Donny Sr. know a trade war would be a horrible idea.

In a letter published by the American Action Forum and signed by, among others, former Federal Reserve chairmen Ben Bernanke and Alan Greenspan, a group of economists write: “Additional steel tariffs would actually damage the U.S. economy. Tariffs would raise costs for manufacturers, reduce employment in manufacturing, and increase prices for consumers.” Noting that the U.S. currently has more than 150 duties on steel imports, with top sources being Canada, Brazil, South Korea, and Mexico, they add, “Additional tariffs would likely do harm to our relations with these friendly nations.”

Of course, given the Trump administration’s disdain for both economists and maintaining friendly relations with allies, it’s not clear the letter will have much of an effect. Though the president is, allegedly, all about being “America First,” and a trade war would actually hurt Americans, Trump scholars would remind you of the clause in the Trump Doctrine that says that feeding the president’s ego takes precedence over effects on American workers and consumers.

Jivanka takes a well-timed business trip

If you’re trying to reach senior White House advisers Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner this week, the latter of whom was one-fourth of the attendees at the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting heard ‘round the world, please be advised that they will be out of the office. Naturally, this has nothing to do with attempting to distance themselves from the “Category Five hurricane” currently buffeting the West Wing, and everything to do with their presence at the annual Allen & Co. Sun Valley confab of tech and media billionaires being absolutely essential. (As you may recall, in addition to bringing peace to the Middle East, Kushner has been tasked with modernizing government technology and ramping up cyber-security measures.)

In the future, guy who allegedly engaged in insider trading won’t Google how to avoid being caught insider trading

The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced insider trading charges against a research scientist who allegedly searched the internet for “how sec detect unusual trade” before making a trade that the agency flagged as suspicious through data analysis. The S.E.C.’s complaint alleges that Fei Yan loaded up on stocks and options in advance of two corporate acquisitions late last year based on confidential information obtained from his wife, an associate at a law firm that worked on the deals. According to the S.E.C.’s complaint, Yan made approximately $120,000 in illicit profits by selling his holdings in Mattress Firm Holding Corp. and Stillwater Mining Company following public announcements that they would be acquired by other companies.

Another thing Yan will likely avoid doing in the future is allegedly making the trades in an account he created in his mother’s name, as prosecutors claim he did. A lawyer for Yan did not respond to Reuters’s request for comment.

Remember the financial crisis? One of the big factors was banks underwriting and selling toxic mortgage securities, a business that the Royal Bank of Scotland happily took part in. In the years since, the bank was bailed out by British taxpayers, who still own 72 percent of the company, has gone nine (nine!) straight years without an annual profit, and has also said it doesn’t expect to make money until 2018. But it’s trying to prove it’s changed—that it’s not the old bank it once was!—and in addition to selling off businesses and focusing on retail and corporate banking, it’s agreed to pay $5.5 billion to the Federal Housing Finance Agency to resolve claims related to all that toxic mortgage stuff. Investigations by the Justice Department and other American regulators, The New York Times notes, are ongoing and could mean more settlements and penalties, so C.F.O. Ewen Stevenson might not want to put his checkbook away just yet.